


The House in Sleepy Hollow

by idgit_with_a_fidget



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dreamcatcher, Fluff, M/M, Nightmares, Protective Dean Winchester, Witches, dean is consoling, hints at character death, midnight chats, sam has a thing with creepy dolls, sleeping in strangers' houses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 17:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idgit_with_a_fidget/pseuds/idgit_with_a_fidget
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boys and Cas are resting in a strangers' house in an attempt to relax before their next hunt, but Cas' night is far from peaceful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The House in Sleepy Hollow

A faded light bathed the sofa in a soft white glow as it leaked through the exposed gap where the thin, flimsy curtains met. _Satin_ , Dean reflected with an internal tone of repulsion and mild surprise that he’d actually recognised the material. He watched too much daytime television on their days off; even if the overtly camp couple did give good advice on throw pillows.

_Throw pillows?_

They’d resulted to squatting again, the three of them, on the road and on the run. This house was grand and large and stood poised and empty by the side of the street in a secluded and sleepy-hollow neighbourhood and belonged to a family who were clearly but modestly rich: the type of people who would chuckle and shrug politely when their finances were mentioned as though it was nothing, no big deal. It provided the perfect temporary motel for the two brothers and their heavenly companion, who seemed to be staying with them for longer than he usually did. Sam was self-consciously curled up in the pre-teen daughter’s single bed (rock-paper-scissors had dictated the room arrangement), surrounded by stuffed toys in a wide range of animals, like a plush, inverted zoo congregated around to see its main attraction. He’d had to put the girl’s doll – a brightly made up face with rainbow ribbons in her yarn hair and a malicious gleam in her cyan blue button eyes- out of the room before he could sleep. It lay slumped on the windowsill out in the hallway, watching, planning… Its presence ghosted in the brother’s dream.

Cas was dozing on the couch in the living room, the heater having sucked the moisture from the air, and Dean couldn’t sleep. He perched on the arm of a red chair, sipping tasteless water and watching Cas snooze. It was an odd thing, and it made him feel only slightly like a stalker, but it wasn’t totally in the realms of weird. In all honesty, it was strangely calming and transfixing. Cas’ face was still and placid; he didn’t snore –much to the disappointment of Dean’s mischievous streak- but his chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm. Dean fancied he heard his name on Cas’ lips; that would give him something to wind the angel up about over breakfast.

He wondered briefly what the angel dreamt about; if he dreamt at all. Do angels dream? Do they dream of humans as humans dream of them, or do they dream of darker things, scarier things, things that weren’t human at all? The things that torment them, threaten to pull them into the Pit, through the Gate, into the Cage? Their past life, perhaps, and the ghost of the memories there?

The ivory light was almost cliché and made Cas look like a stereotypical celestial creature from a children’s book reciting the Christmas Story. It erased his haggard face, furrowed brow and thick trench-coat he was using as a blanket. In an unsettling way he resembled a corpse.

Dean shuddered, but blamed the air ventilation and not his macabre thoughts: he had too many of them. 

The house popped and hummed. Water pipes clanged. The fridge whirred. 

Dean took another swig of the water and wished it was something stronger. He wished he could sleep. What was keeping him awake; he was unsure. Was it the fear of a nightmare coming to plague him? Maybe he was over-tired, past the point where sleep would rest and relax his bones, muscles and mind. One good dream, even a dreamless slumber would do him the world of good.

Dean wasn’t looking, but he was suddenly aware of another conscious presence in the room. The air seemed to shift. There was the sound of leather protesting. 

“Dean?”

Through the hazy half-lit gloom of the living room, Cas’ blue eyes shone bright but bleary, his pupils large as he became accustomed to the lack of light. Dean turned to face him. He smiled crookedly.

“Rise and shine, Featherhead.”

Cas looked about himself as though puzzled, as though he’d suddenly been transported there not on his own accord. He had say up and bundled the ran trenchcoat in his lap. He looked naked without it. He stared at Dean. Was he imagining things or did Cas look…startled?

“Dean?” Cas said again, sounding meek. His voice seemed to have dropped an entire octave upon waking and the sound sent a vibration through Dean, much like the same effect a beaten drum has. 

“Yeah, right here,” Dean leaned forward in concern. “Cas. Cas. _Cas_. Over this way.”

The angel stared right at him, right through him, eyes sharp and pleading in the dark. He was afraid. It set Dean on edge; if Cas was scared –heck, if Cas showed any signs of emotion- it wasn’t always a good omen. He blinked.

“Dean.” This time the tone was less frightened. It was a low whisper that ached with choked relief.

“Yeah. Hi. Are you okay, man?” Dean carefully crossed the floor to the sofa. Cas grabbed his wrist suddenly. He was breathing hard and just staring, terrified, up at the hunter. His skin was cold.

“Cas what’s wrong?” Dean demanded again. “Tell me.” he could hear a quiver of fear surface in his own voice. The grip around his wrist tightened. 

“Dean.” Was all the angel could say.

“Cas! Snap out of it, buddy! You’re freakin’ me out,” Dean found himself crying out, throat tight. He consciously lowered his volume to a hiss so not to wake Sam upstairs. 

Cas’ breathing was still fast. His tongue darted across his dry lips as though struggling to speak a word that wasn’t a blurting of a name again. “I… you’re in one piece.”

“Yeah, I’m…wait, what?”

“I…they said…they said that they were torturing you. They said…they had you locked and chained up and in restraints and…”

Dean chuckled good naturedly. Humour in the place of nerves. “You know you’re the only one I’d let put me in restraints, Cas,” he joked in an attempt to lighten the mood, but only succeeded in making Cas clutch to him tighter, turning the skin a worrying white and was bound to leave a bruise or maybe even encourage blood to flow. 

“They said they were going to let me hear you scream…they said there was nothing…I tried. I tried. I tried but I failed…” Cas’ words withered down to a hushed breath. He was genuinely upset, devastated at himself.

“You had a bad dream is all,” Dean assured him, grasping the situation. “I’m okay. I still have all my limbs. Cas?”

Cas had his head hung down, chin against his chest, gaze fixed on the floor. His shoulders were hunched, muscles tensed as though waiting for the lashing of a discipline whip, a cat-o-nine-tails to bite into his flesh. 

“Cas. C'mon. What happened in your nightmare?”

Dean received an alarmed look as a reply.

“I mean it. I want to know.”

He was surprised at how tender his tone had turned.

Cas hesitated. The darkness seemed to stick to him like a cloak, as though he was a magnet for some sort of other-worldly anti-matter. It was unsettling. 

“I dreamt that these awful creatures, witches, kidnapped you and your brother. They kept you in a basement and in the dark you prayed to me to come and help you. Don’t worry, it wasn’t anything touching, you called me…um…that thing again and demanded ‘my ass to get down there’. So I did. But the witches caught me in a trap. I should’ve been more careful. I should’ve been paying attention. It was in the middle of nowhere, this small cabin, by a lake. The grass and plants all around were dead. They kept me trapped, they hurt you. I could hear you screaming. Like an animal. Screaming for your brother. For me. They showed me visions: you in bits, blood on the floor, so much blood you could make a river, an ocean. But I couldn’t move. Then, it was silent. And the flames started. The witches vanished and I smelt it. Meat. Cooking. Skin flaying from bone. And a great pain in my head…” a deathly silence settled over the angel. Neither spoke for a long time. The ghostly light from the satin curtains was like a smudged chalk line on a black canvas. “Dean, I should have saved you.”

“No way. I would’ve saved you first, dude. I can fight off a couple of witches no bother.”

“But, they said you were dead.”

Dean ignored this. “’Cos that’s what we do. You gotta let me save you sometimes. We save each other’s asses.”

A sad part-smirk crossed Cas’ mouth. Dean sighed. 

“We both need some sleep or we’re gonna crack.”

Cas nodded weakly in agreement. He declined Dean’s offer of water.

“It was just a dream,” Dean said again, lying against the chair. He was sitting on the floor. “Not real.” Although it sounded more like he was reassuring himself. 

“You’re very hospitable to me, Dean,” Cas yawned. “I appreciate it.”

Dean shrugged. “Don’t mention it.”

“I imagine you’ll be gladly accepted into my father’s domain.”

Dean stuttered but Cas was staring at an opposite wall, ever vigilant, as though he was going to tackle any nightmare that might try and attack him again. His black hair stuck up at awkward angles.

“Think I’d ever be an angel?” Dean snorted. “I mean…”

Cas said nothing for a moment. “I think you’d suit wings.”

“You…uh…you do?” Dean flexed his back a little, rolled his shoulders, tried to feel the imaginary feathers and bones unfolding, growing, swelling until they took up the entire breadth of the room. For a moment he was enveloped in thought, but then he frowned.

No, I’d look ridiculous. Wouldn’t I?

“Yes.”

“Let me see yours, then,” Dean goaded. 

“You already have. The time we met and you stabbed me.”

“Hey, no guilt trips,” Dean jabbed him in the ribs as Cas got up to close the curtains over. “Besides that was just a shadow on a wall.”

“A manifestation on a wall, yes, but wings none the less,” Cas argued from the window. The white light glowed behind him as though mocking the angelic signature.

“Doesn’t count.”

Cas paused. “Another time.”

Dean caught his eye in the gloom. “That a promise?”

The angel said nothing again. The idiosyncrasy and syncopated qualities of their conversations wasn’t unusual. Dean shrugged and scrambled to the sofa, making himself comfortable in the warm indent Cas had left behind. 

“Fine. Have it your way, then,” he said, mock-miffed. “I’ll get those wings out of you in one way or another. I don’t care what form of force I gotta use. And I’m very good at getting what I want, dude.”

“That a promise?”

Dean laughed quietly and rolled over, closed his eyes. Suddenly, he turned back and reached for the tumbler of water. In the condensation created from the heat of his palm he drew a symbol with his index finger. He looked up at Cas earnestly, who didn’t recognise the marking. Water droplets dripped.

“Dreamcatcher,” he explained and winked.

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas said in muted tones, touched by the human will for kindness and compassion. It was remarkable, the instinct to protect, to assure, to defend, even if it was from bad dreams that made little sense in the morning’s light.

“Whatever. Just don’t expect me to be checking under your bed or in the closet for the boogeyman, ‘kay?” Cas didn’t answer. “I didn’t think angels were supposed to sleep, anyhow, let alone dream.”

The angel swallowed. “The Bible has many allusions to night visions being clairvoyant…” he mumbled, sounding pained. Dean stared at his indistinct figure in the dark. Oh. 

And with that there was quiet in the house. And as the day came, the doll on the windowsill had fallen onto one side and the symbol had faded, along with toxic thoughts. For now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
